Tradition
by Kasamari
Summary: Annabeth needs a break. Percy tries to give her one. Percabeth


Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson

Okay, I've never really been into all that romantic sweep-her-off-her-feet kind of stuff. Stick me in front of the Minotaur leading an army of monsters into Manhattan and I'm good. Tell me to make a girl swoon and I'm more likely to look for a rock to crawl under. Don't get me wrong, I've shown Annabeth plenty of examples of how much I care about her. Case in point: I'm in college. Grover and Tyson would be the first to tell you that I'd never enroll in college on my own. School and I just don't mix. Why? Well let's start with Mrs. Dodds, giant Canadian cannibals, and of course Kelli. Just a few lovely examples right there. Still, I let her talk me into it. But I'm getting off track here.

See pretty much ever since she started on the Olympus reconstruction project, Annabeth's been nose deep in her work. Mix that in with school and you'll find practically no life. Then there's the monsters. So I started thinking to myself how much I hated it and how she could use a break. Just sit back and relax. I decided I was going to do something special. Really special.

Like I said before, I'm not really good at that sort of thing, but in the last four years Annabeth and I have managed to catch enough lovey-dovey movies for me to pick up a thing or two. I started with the apartment. We'd been living together for a little over a year and between class hours and everything else the place ended up a mess pretty quick. I spent most of the morning cleaning the entire place. About three hours of cleaning everything from the ceiling fan down to vacuuming. Not something I ever want to do again.

The next item on the agenda was making sure that every distraction in the place was out of commission. Basically that meant unplugging the television and computer. Why didn't I unplug the phone? Cause we didn't have one. The thing with demigods and broadcasting themselves is that it's basically like a mortal walking around with a lighthouse beacon shooting out of their forehead. You'd notice.

After doing a quick scan of the place to make sure it was actually ready, I covered the table with what Annabeth called our "guest tablecloth" and put out some candles. Dinner was a bit tricky, but I managed to get some real non-takeout food for us (thanks, mom). I flipped through our cds and found one of her favorites. I placed it in the player and turned down the volume to help set the mood before turning out the lights.

Just before she was supposed to be home I got changed into some fairly decent clothes, in other words: not jeans and a t-shirt and waited in front of the door with a long stem rose in hand. The first thing she did when the door opened was toss her coat and backpack on the couch.

"Today sucked," she groaned as she walked right past me to our room. "I'm working on the reconstruction if you need me."

She closed the door behind her leaving me standing there like a moron with a clean place, a warm meal, music, and a flower that she didn't even notice! I had put way too much into the whole plan and had even more riding on it so there was no way in Hades I was going to let her walk right by me and force me to put it off. I went to the room and opened the door.

Annabeth was sitting on the bed with her fingers flying over her silver laptop. Every few seconds she would pause and reach over to her stack of notes on the nightstand with one hand and keep working with the other. I stood there for a few minutes before clearing my throat to get her attention.

"What is it, Percy?" She barely even glanced at me.

"Dinner," I told her.

I'll be out in a few," she replied.

"Nope," I smiled as I took her hand. Her other hand clutched the laptop as I lead her to the table. "Have some."

Annabeth was so focused on hr work, I wasn't even sure what she'd noticed yet anything yet. Finally, I gently started pushing the laptop screen down.

"Percy, I'm not in the mood to play around right now," she protested. Usually when she said things like that I'd listen. This was a special case. I pushed the laptop closed and she finally looked at me. Then the table.

"What's all this?" she asked.

"Dinner," I answered with that "duh" tone of voice.

"Wow. When did your mom come over?" she grinned.

"Ha ha. Can't you just enjoy it?" I blushed. "So I can't cook. I did all the rest."

"All the rest of what?"

I gave her an annoyed look and she finally started noticing everything. The candles, the music, the fact that the apartment was clean, and eventually the fact that I was clean. Her face was priceless.

"Now are you going to stop working and have dinner with me, or am I gonna have to tape your laptop shut?"

"Okay, okay!" she said holding up her hands and smiling. "I cave."

It was a great start. We started reminiscing about our first years together. The progression of Camp Half-Blood since the construction of the new cabins had begun. Unfortunately it didn't last. All she seemed to be able to think and talk about after a while was work. I tried. Seriously, I tried. But honestly, I was getting tired of it. No matter how I tried to turn the conversation we always ended up back on Olympus.

"Can we please not talk about the reconstruction for five minutes?" I blurted out in the middle of something she was saying.

"Excuse me?"

She did not sound happy.

"It's like that's all you think about anymore. I was hoping to give you a night away from all that."

"Well forgive me if I'm preoccupied with trying to figure out how to please twelve Olympian gods and goddesses without stepping on any toes!" she yelled. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep them all satisfied with everything? If I build a statue to Zeus then Poseidon and Hades get upset, a symbol of Athena and Aries claims he's getting disrespected without something for him, something for Artemis and her hunters and Apollo starts faking being mopey and depressed because he's not as popular as his little sister!"

"Enough, Annabeth!" I said, my own voice raising to match hers. "That's my whole point! You're thinking about it too much. Put it aside for a while, it's not gonna kill you!"

"You just don't get it!"

"Neither do you!" I said. "I'm trying to make tonight special!"

"Why?" she demanded. "What's so important about tonight that I'm supposed to ignore work and school?"

"You!" I answered. "Me! Us! For the love of the gods, Annabeth Chase, I'm trying to set a mood here so I can propose to you!"

She froze.

I froze.

It was so not supposed to go down like that. What kind of stupid did I have to be to shout that out at her? She just kept staring at me with that dazed look on her face until I felt my gut tied itself in so many knots that I thought I was going to puke.

"What did you say?"

I was probably redder than Mr. D's bloodshot eyes. Even though I was having trouble breathing or even thinking straight for that matter, I fumbled through my pocket. I pulled out a small ring created from coral straight from my dad's underwater palace. Embedded in it was a small pearl that gave off a glow like the moonlight's reflection over the sea.

Now in situations like these I have a tendency to be more or less a blundering idiot. I did my best not to do that this time. I walked around the table to her seat, barely managing to not accidentally kick the table leg on the way. I dropped down to one knee and looked her in the eye. I tried to think of something romantic or poetic to say, but apparently Apollo wasn't going to be doing me any favors.

"Marry me," I said. "Marry me. Have a family with me. Grow old with me."

Annabeth just kept staring. It felt like Kronos had frozen me in time except I could feel my leg starting to go numb from resting my elbow on it. Then she did something that gave my brain the jump start it needed. A tear rolled down her cheek.

Good tear or bad tear?

Next thing I knew her arms were around my neck and she was kissing me. I wrapped my arms around her and lifted us both to our feet. When we broke the kiss we were both chuckling and giggling like little kids.

"Is that a yes?" I asked.

"What do you think, Seaweed Brain?"

"Come on," I grinned. "Let me hear you say it. I mean you did totally ruin my plans for tonight, Wise Girl."

"Don' you remember?" she asked as she kissed me again. "I told you I would never, _ever_ make things easy for you."

A/N: I just spent the last three days re-reading the entire Percy Jackson and the Olympians series because the movie made me cry tears of anger and hatred. No one should be allowed to take that many liberties with a title. I hope Riordan kicked a few people in the head when he got to see the final product.


End file.
